Police officers conduct a crackdown on drunk driving on a road in the central city of Sejong on April 8, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s transport safety agency plans to introduce a drunk driving prevention system that prevents rental cars from being started if they detect that the driver is drunk.
The Korea Transportation Safety Authority said Monday it will launch a trial operation of the rental cars mounted with a drunk driving prevention system.
When classifying the number of traffic accident deaths by type of commercial vehicle over the past five years, trucks ranked first with 1,137 people or 35.9 percent, followed by taxis with 840 people or 26.5 percent, buses with 686 people or 21.7 percent and rental cars with 505 people or 15.9 percent.
However, when it comes to traffic accident deaths for drunk driving, rental cars came on top with 83 people or 65.4 percent, followed by trucks with 22 people or 17.3 percent, taxis with 17 people or 13.4 percent and buses with 5 people or 3.9 percent.
The number of deaths from drunk driving per 100,000 individuals stood at 2.2 people for rental cars and 1.3 people for non-commercial passenger cars.
Over the past five years, the number of deaths from drunk driving declined by 13.1 percent for non-commercial passenger cars, in stark contrast to an 11.4 percent increase for rental cars.
After going through the trial operation, the agency plans to study the effect and problem of the drunk driving prevention system and how to apply it to the domestic market.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
